The Archive

Easy like Sunday morning (so, hungover then)

There’s no way to write this next sentence without coming across as a bit of a desperate loser, so I’ll come right out and say it.

I went speed dating on Saturday.

There, that wasn’t so hard was it? No. Because I am a desperate loser and I know it.

Anyway, point being, I went speed dating. For the uninitiated, this entails a roomful (15 in this case) of girls sitting around a bar. Fifteen men then get to talk to the girls. You get three minutes to chat, evaluate and decide if you like them, then the whistle blows. Then you have to get up and go on to the next girl. Do this 15 times.

At the end of the evening, you go online, tick the girls you’d like to see again and if (and it’s a big if) they ticked you as well, you get emailed contact details for them or something.

It was bizarre. When we went in (Running Dave, Wig and myself), the atmosphere was, as Wig put it, ‘like the start of a five-a-side football match’. The men and women sort of fell naturally into two groups, each side looking the other over, evaluating and assessing.

Then, the kick off. Naturally, I’d had a drink or two before things began as a warm-up and I had been well advised by a veteran to pick up a bottle of wine, as you don’t get a chance to go to the bar apart from two short breaks. So, well-armed, well-oiled and well-intentioned (well two out of three aint bad, as they say), I began.

It turns out that three minutes is simultaneously not very long at all, and a lifetime.

For instance, a conversation about the identifying features of cancerous cells requires rather more than three minutes (I know, I know, you’re surprised). And yes, I really did have that conversation and I really did find it interesting.

Now you know why I need to go speed dating – thereby contractually obliging women to talk to me, if only for three minutes.

But it’s also a lifetime. Or at least it probably was for the women. In truth, had I been female and attended the same event, I would have asked for my money back. From what we could make out, the male contingent were so variously crap, we were quite possible the best of the bunch. Yes, it was that bad.

At one point, we were talking to a couple of the other guys who could charitably have been described as ‘ugly nerds’ and they were complaining about the quality of the women! The nerve of some people.

Meanwhile, one other notable, when asking a girl called Bec what it was short for, was invited to take a guess.

Now you or I might guess Rebecca. Or if we were feeling bold, we might suggest ‘Beckoning me into your bedroom?’ with perhaps a cheeky smile.

What we wouldn’t have said, at least I wouldn’t because I’ve paid money to meet women and, until the booze kicks in, am likely to want to make a good impression, is ‘Bitch eats cum’.

And this was at the start of the evening.

You can see how three minutes might start to drag a bit though, can’t you? So I suggest if you’re going to do this in the future, take your own whistle, then you can hurry things along when you need to.

Anyway, three minutes is short when you bear in mind you’re supposed to take notes about each girl. This is so you remember who you liked when it comes to the all-important ticking. But taking notes eats into your three minutes, so I found myself just writing a name and a keyword to remind me which one she was.

This was all good in theory, but what actually happened was that the more I drank, the more obscure and surreal my one word descriptions became (to say nothing of the legibility issues). So this morning, when I came to check the notes, I found I had written a range of what appeared to be cryptic crossword clues. ‘Isabel – touched leg’ and ‘Bec – banker (ironically).’

Why is Bec ironically a banker? Who knows? Does she approve loans for people on the day after they become insolvent?

Of course, one also has to suspect she has written her own notes, and has said something remarkably similar about me, without the irony.

Another issue was that there were two more men than there were women, so every now and then the whistle would blow and you’d find yourself on the sub’s bench. With nothing else to do and nobody to talk to, this meant you’d basically spend three minutes drinking solidly.

Which is how I managed to blow it on The Golden Mile.

It became clear after the first break as everyone exchanged intel, that the best looking and most interesting girls had all been clustered into one group of five – dubbed The Golden Mile. Amazingly, it wasn’t that there was one looker and one interesting girl alternating, they were actually good looking and interesting in a single package.

Unfortunately for me, not only did I get to The Golden Mile as my last leg of the evening, it was also immediately preceded by a turn on the bench.

So basically, by the time I got to the best women in the room, I was slurring, repeating myself and making inappropriate jokes.

Now some might say this is a good thing, as it’s best they see the real me right from the outset. To them I say "Fuck off." For my part, I’m actually quite disappointed.

Then again, I shouldn’t worry. For all I know these lovely ladies came speed dating hoping to meet a breast-fixated neanderthal with a drink problem. That can happen? Right?

Well, I haven’t put the ticks in, so there’s still a glimmer of hope. Watch this space.

posted by Peter The Great @ 4:56 PM